The ACORN Story

Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo has done a great job of covering the ACORN story and of explaining why it's a red herring.  His latest post is the best (and most complete) yet:

The Republican party is grasping on to the ACORN story as a way to delegitimize what now looks like the probable outcome of the November election. It is also a way to stoke the paranoia of their base, lay the groundwork for legal challenges of close outcomes in various states and promote new legal restrictions on legitimate voting by lower income voters and minorities. The big picture is that these claims of 'voter fraud' are themselves a fraud, a tool to aid in suppressing Democratic voter turnout. But I want give readers a bit more detail to understand what is going because the right-wing freak out about ACORN happens pretty much on schedule every two years. The whole scam is premised on having enough people who don't remember when they tried it before who they can then confuse and lie to.

He goes on to explain:

1. The outrage is based on anecdotal evidence that never bears out when investigated;
   
2. The cheaters are often identified and turned-out by ACORN itself;
   
3. Voter registration fraud is not the same thing as  voter fraud and there is no (recent) historical correlation between the two.
   

If you hear complaints about ACORN, this is a good post to point to.